


Potential

by pseudonym_blue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hogwarts Era, Morally Ambiguous Character, Multi, Severitus, Sexuality, Trauma, good old-fashioned dumbledore bashin'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 12:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2547980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudonym_blue/pseuds/pseudonym_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after the war leaves its survivors devastated, the present is abandoned for the past. A box arrives at Hogwarts holding a handwritten book, a collection of memories, and the Order's last hope; that this time, everything can be saved. But what will be revealed in the process?<br/>There is always a potential for change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potential

**Author's Note:**

> [*TW*]: This story discusses suicide, self-harm, sexual assault, addiction, child abuse, death, and gore/explicit violence. Please avoid reading if this could be overly upsetting.  
> \-------------  
> Hi everyone! I'm going to be restarting this fic and actually continuing it. A lot of the plot has changed, but it's going to be much better this time. It's been years and I'm excited to finally write this!  
> I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I profit off this fanwork.  
> Enjoy + feel free to comment!

The box was packed; he reckoned that, after years of planning, it was finally ready. The problem at hand, however, was more complex: was he ready? In this situation, could anyone ever be? 

Five numbing years had passed since the end of the war, and those that were left alive in the aftermath could barely be called that. Four years and six months since Snape's suicide, four years, two months, and three days since Clarence had caved and gifted him with the memories he had left. A box, filled with neat rows of glass bottles of past lives, a swirling, glowing blue; four days awake spent watching every one. 

Even longer than that until he understood. 

The book came later, after years of research and late nights. He had gone through Theo's paintings, his photographs, Malfoy's old drawings and his own hastily scribbled notes and had chosen the best to add to it - which in the end, he supposed, made it their own collaborative work. He had written it himself, had extracted every memory to get all the words right. And now it was done. 

And there was no one left to read it. Everyone was dead. 

That was why he had written it. 

Because this way - this way, next time around, there would be no writing needed, no secrets to pass down only after death. His younger self would live, and so would Malfoy and Snape and Clarence and Lucius and Narcissa and Pansy and Sirius and Lupin and Theo- 

They would not die. Not like before. None of them would. He had to believe that. 

Of course, they would all be furious with him. He figured that this deliberate destruction of privacy would drive at least Snape, especially then-Snape, to murder or nervous breakdown, not to mention Ron and Hermione's reactions. His younger self, of course, would be horrified, but it was all for the better. 

The Greater Good. Concepts, Harry supposed, were better when they were being carried out of his own choice, not that of whatever powers existence held over him. 

Time and space. And fate. All soon to be altered by the man who had once been Harry Potter. 

What he held in his hands was more than a last hope. It was human lives personified, those of his friends and family, lives that had long since ended. Lives that, in a different world, still held the potential to change. 

The time turner burned in his hand, and Harry Nott disappeared into the universe. 

 


End file.
